Miami, Mar 24 (EFE).- Miami will once again become the epicenter of electronic music this Friday with a new edition of the Ultra Music festival, which over its three days will bring together up to 170,000 people in a park in the city center people, according to figures from the organization.
The 23rd edition of the event presents a lineup of stars of the genre such as Carl Cox, Afrojack, Alesso, Armin Van Buuren, David Guetta, Tiësto and Gareth Emery, who will spread out across the seven stages built at Bayfront Park..
The large influx of public, coming from a dozen countries, has motivated the local authorities to enlist a large police deployment and reorganize traffic throughout the weekend.
Although it coincides with the “spring break”, the spring vacation that brings thousands of people to Miami and its neighbor Miami Beach, where two people were killed by firearms last weekend, the police hope that there will be no major incidents In the Ultra and the 2023 edition, follow the line of last year, which closed with fifteen arrests, mostly for possession or sale of drugs.
That year, the festival was held again after two years in which the loudspeakers remained silent as a result of the covid-19 pandemic and after a problematic edition held in 2019 on Virginia Key, an islet that is part of Miami.
Among the novelties in terms of security is now the ban on backpacks. Instead, attendees will be able to carry small transparent bags that can fit water bottles and little else.
As pointed out by the Miami Police Chief, Manuel Morales, a large number of agents have been stationed in the area, while at least a hundred firefighters and lifeguards will be available every day of the festival.
Last year, when the event brought together 160,000 people in its three days, more than 120 people were treated for minor problems, including dehydration, and 48 had to be transferred to a hospital, the city fire department reported this week. .
A source of nuisance for the neighbors, who, given the disorders and complaints due to the volume of music, managed to prevent the event from taking place in its usual location in 2019, the Ultra Music Festival is, on the other hand, a juicy source of income for the local ecosystem .
According to the organization, the economic impact of this festival in South Florida is estimated this year at almost 200 million dollars throughout the three days, including lodging, hospitality, nightclubs, retail trade, car rentals and others. .
Started on the beaches of Miami Beach in 1999, when it consisted of only one date, the Ultra Music Festival has become a must for lovers of house, techno or dubstep and brings together thousands of people from all over the world every year. world, many of them from Latin America.
The event later moved to what had been its usual venue for some two decades, Miami’s Bayfront Park, and its expansion gave way to Miami Music Week, an umbrella under which different DJ sessions are held in the most popular nightclubs in the Miami metropolitan area.
This year, from Tuesday to Sunday, Music Week has scheduled more than a hundred acts, including Resistance, which with the slogan “From Ibiza 2 Miami” has established its “residence” in the US at the M2 nightclub in Miami Beach , with Charlotte de Witte as one of its biggest claims.
More than twenty years later, Ultra Music is today a world-renowned brand that develops electronic music festivals in Europe, Asia and countries on the American continent.
